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1981 In Literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1981. Events *May 31 – The burning of Jaffna Public Library in Sri Lanka is begun by a mob of police and government-sponsored paramilitaries. They destroy over 97,000 volumes in one of the worst examples of ethnic book burning in the modern era. *August – Sefer ve Sefel opens as an English used bookstore in Jerusalem. *''unknown dates'' ** John Gardner successfully revives the James Bond novel series originated by Ian Fleming with '' Licence Renewed'' (not counting a faux biography of Bond and a pair of film novelizations, the first original Bond novel since 1968's ''Colonel Sun''). The revived Bond book series will run uninterrupted until 2002. **Colin MacCabe is denied tenure at the University of Cambridge, apparently because of a dispute within the English Faculty about the teaching of structuralism. **The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is given for the first time. New books Fiction *Kingsl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
May 31
Events Pre-1600 * 455 – Emperor Petronius Maximus is stoned to death by an angry mob while fleeing Rome. * 1223 – Mongol invasion of the Cumans: Battle of the Kalka River: Mongol armies of Genghis Khan led by Subutai defeat Kievan Rus' and Cumans. * 1293 – Mongol invasion of Java was a punitive expedition against King Kertanegara of Singhasari, who had refused to pay tribute to the Yuan and maimed one of its ministers. However, it ended with failure for the Mongols. Regarded as establish City of Surabaya *1578 – King Henry III lays the first stone of the Pont Neuf (''New Bridge''), the oldest bridge of Paris, France. 1601–1900 *1610 – The pageant '' London's Love to Prince Henry'' on the River Thames celebrates the creation of Prince Henry as Prince of Wales. * 1669 – Citing poor eyesight as a reason, Samuel Pepys records the last event in his diary. *1775 – American Revolution: The Mecklenburg Resolves are adopted in the Prov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Newsweek
''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely distributed during the 20th century, and had many notable editors-in-chief. The magazine was acquired by The Washington Post Company in 1961, and remained under its ownership until 2010. Revenue declines prompted The Washington Post Company to sell it, in August 2010, to the audio pioneer Sidney Harman for a purchase price of one dollar and an assumption of the magazine's liabilities. Later that year, ''Newsweek'' merged with the news and opinion website ''The Daily Beast'', forming The Newsweek Daily Beast Company. ''Newsweek'' was jointly owned by the estate of Harman and the diversified American media and Internet company IAC (company), IAC. ''Newsweek'' continued to experience financial difficulties, whic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pierre Berton
Pierre Francis de Marigny Berton, CC, O.Ont. (July 12, 1920 – November 30, 2004) was a Canadian writer, journalist and broadcaster. Berton wrote 50 best-selling books, mainly about Canadiana, Canadian history and popular culture. He also wrote critiques of mainstream religion, anthologies, children's books and historical works for youth. He was a reporter and war correspondent, an editor at ''Maclean's Magazine'' and ''The Toronto Star'' and, for 39 years, a guest on Front Page Challenge. He was a founder of the Writers' Trust of Canada, and won many honours and awards. Early years Berton was born on July 12, 1920, in Whitehorse, Yukon, where his father had moved for the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush. His family moved to Dawson City, Yukon in 1921. His mother, Laura Beatrice Berton (née Thompson), was a school teacher in Toronto until she was offered a job as a teacher in Dawson City at the age of 29 in 1907. She met Frank Berton in the nearby mining town of Granville shortly a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Berger (novelist)
Thomas Louis Berger (July 20, 1924 – July 13, 2014) was an American novelist. Probably best known for his picaresque novel ''Little Big Man'' and the subsequent film by Arthur Penn, Berger explored and manipulated many genres of fiction throughout his career, including the crime novel, the hard-boiled detective story, science fiction, the utopian novel, plus re-workings of classical mythology, Arthurian legend, and the survival adventure. Berger's biting wit led many reviewers to refer to him as a satirist or "comic" novelist, descriptions he preferred to reject. His admirers often bemoaned that his talent and achievement were underappreciated, in view of his versatility across many forms of fiction, his precise use of language, and his probing intelligence. Biography Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Thomas Berger grew up in the nearby community of Lockland. He interrupted his college career to enlist in the United States Army in 1943. Berger served in Europe during World War II and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ill Seen Ill Said
''Ill Seen Ill Said'' is a short novel by Samuel Beckett. It was first published in French as ''Mal vu mal dit'' in 1981, and was then translated into English by the author in 1982. It was also published in the October 5, 1981 edition of The New Yorker. Together with ''Company'' and ''Worstward Ho'', it was collected in the volume ''Nohow On ''Nohow on'' is a collection of three prose pieces by Samuel Beckett, comprising ''Company'', ''Ill Seen Ill Said'', and ''Worstward Ho "Worstward Ho" is a prose piece by Samuel Beckett. Its title is a parody of Charles Kingsley's ''Westward Ho ...'' in 1989. References Short stories by Samuel Beckett 1981 short stories {{1980s-story-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal and tragicomic experiences of life, often coupled with black comedy and nonsense. It became increasingly minimalist as his career progressed, involving more aesthetic and linguistic experimentation, with techniques of repetition and self-reference. He is considered one of the last modernist writers, and one of the key figures in what Martin Esslin called the Theatre of the Absurd. A resident of Paris for most of his adult life, Beckett wrote in both French and English. During the Second World War, Beckett was a member of the French Resistance group Gloria SMH (Réseau Gloria). Beckett was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his writing, which—in new forms for the novel and drama—in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation". He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Une Rose Au Paradis
''Une rose au paradis'' is a science-fiction novel written by René Barjavel, and first published in 1981. Buried far beneath what used to be Paris, the last members of the human race live in an automated shelter. They are Mr. and Mrs. Jonas, their twin teenage children Jim and Jil, and Mr. Gé, who is directly responsible for setting the bombs that entirely destroyed the surface of the planet and at the same time for saving the Jonas family, whom he hopes will repopulate the world once it is safe to go out. But innocent games lead the twins to unwittingly start the repopulation right then and there, putting in jeopardy the delicate air exchanges balance of the shelter. There are now too many people in the shelter, and Mrs. Jonas' family instincts activate - she pushes Mr Gé into 'the hole', where everything from food remains to clothes are processed and recycled. Doing so, she accelerates the events so that soon there is only one choice left - die in the shelter, or try to rea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
René Barjavel
René Barjavel (24 January 1911 – 24 November 1985) was a French author, journalist and critic who may have been the first to think of the grandfather paradox in time travel. He was born in Nyons, a town in the Drôme department in southeastern France. He is best known as a science fiction author, whose work often involved the fall of civilisation due to technocratic hubris and the madness of war, but who also favoured themes emphasising the durability of love. René Barjavel wrote several novels with these themes, such as '' Ravage'' (translated as ''Ashes, ashes''), ''Le Grand Secret'', ''La Nuit des temps'' (translated as ''The Ice People''), and ''Une rose au paradis''. His writing is poetic, dreamy and sometimes philosophical. Some of his works have their roots in an empirical and poetic questioning of the existence of God (notably ''La Faim du tigre''). He was also interested in the environmental heritage which we leave to future generations. Whilst his works are rarely ta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Cat And The King
''The Cat and the King'' (1981) is a work of historical fiction about the court of French King Louis XIV (1638–1715) by novelist Louis Auchincloss. The novel's narrator— Louis de Rouvroy, the second Duc de Saint-Simon—was a real-life French noble who observed life at the court and recorded in his memoirs all that he saw and felt about the reign of the Sun King. Saint-Simon (1675–1755) is mentioned in many of Auchincloss’ works and in ''The Cat and the King'' he fantasizes that the Duc kept on writing after his real-life memoirs were published. Synopsis Mixing fact and fiction, the Duc de Saint-Simon recounts three episodes in which he and his wife involve themselves in the notorious schemings of King Louis XIV's Versailles. Throughout, the famous courtier's attitudes toward the King and court shift. In the first story, the young Duc, appalled at the King's calculating matches of his illegitimate offspring with prominent aristocrats, works to subvert the wedding of one ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louis Auchincloss
Louis Stanton Auchincloss (; September 27, 1917 – January 26, 2010)Holcomb B. Noble and Charles McGrath''The New York Times''. Retrieved on January 27, 2010. was an American lawyer, novelist, historian, and essayist. He is best known as a novelist who parlayed his experiences into books exploring the experiences and psychology of American polite society and old money. His dry, ironic works of fiction continue the tradition of Henry James and Edith Wharton. in He wrote his novels initially under the name Andrew Lee, the name of an ancestor who cursed any descendant who drank or smoked. Early life Born in Lawrence, New York, Auchincloss was the son of Priscilla Dixon (née Stanton) and Joseph Howland Auchincloss. His brother was Howland Auchincloss and his paternal grandfather, John Winthrop Auchincloss, was the brother of Edgar Stirling Auchincloss (father of James C. Auchincloss) and Hugh Dudley Auchincloss (father of Hugh D. Auchincloss, Jr.). He grew up among the priv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
If There Be Thorns
''If There Be Thorns'' is a novel by Virginia C. Andrews which was published in 1981. It is the third book in the Dollanganger series. The story takes place in the year 1982. A Lifetime movie of the same name premiered on April 5, 2015. Plot The book is narrated by two half-brothers, Jory and Bart Sheffield. Jory is a handsome, talented fourteen-year-old boy who wants to follow his mother Cathy in her career in the ballet, while nine-year old Bart, who sees himself as plain and clumsy, feels inferior to his brother. Bart spends his time in his own world of pretend—often covering bad things that he does with fantasies he creates. He also has congenital analgesia and cannot feel pain as a result, putting him at serious risk of injury or death by infection. By now, Cathy and Chris live together as husband and wife. To hide their history, they tell the boys and other people that Chris was Paul's younger brother. Cathy and Chris have a passionate and very loving relationship, de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Other People (novel)
''Other People'' is a novel by British writer Martin Amis, published in 1981. Plot Mary, an amnesiac young woman, wakes in a hospital and cannot remember who she is, what has happened to her, or even simple things such as how to blow her nose or what clouds are. She leaves the hospital and takes the name "Mary Lamb" after overhearing a nursery rhyme. Mary befriends a woman named Sharon, an alcoholic who seems well-meaning to the naïve Mary until she prostitutes her for money. After enduring painful sex, Mary smashes the man's mouth in once he passes out. She flees, coming into contact with a policeman named Prince, who knows about Mary's past. Mary lives for a while with Sharon's parents, also alcoholics, but eventually she moves into a shelter for "fallen women." She receives a letter from Prince that includes a newspaper clipping concerning her before she lost her memory. Mary learns that her real name is Amy Hide and that her past was quite dark, a fact which causes Mary a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
